Canadian engineering practitioners, facilities and students earned accolades at the 2026 ASHRAE Winter Conference in Las Vegas, where the global society for the advancement of efficient, sustainable building performance and professionalism in the HVAC and refrigeration industry recognized exemplary achievement in the past year and over the longer term. The 132-year-old organization now boasts more than 50,000 members throughout 132 countries worldwide, including 18 chapters across Canada.
Darryl Boyce, an ASHRAE Fellow and past Society president for 2019-20, received the ASHRAE Distinguished Public Service Award. The award is bestowed to an ASHRAE member who has made an outstanding contribution to the community where they live and/or practice and brought positive attention to the engineering discipline. Boyce is a member of the Ottawa Valley ASHRAE chapter and the principal of Boyce Consulting Services in Kemptville, Ontario.
Alekhya Kaianathbhatta was named this year’s Young Engineer in ASHRAE (YEA) Inspirational Leader for her efforts in the industry and wider community. She is a P.Eng. who holds an MSc in sustainable building design and is an associate and commissioning specialist with the HIDI Group consulting engineers in Toronto.
Carey Simonson a professor and chair of undergraduate mechanical engineering at the University of Saskatchewan received the E.K. Campbell Award of Merit, which recognizes outstanding service and achievement in teaching. Now in his 25th year at the university, he has undertaken research into: moisture transfer in buildings; air-to-air energy recovery; heat and mass transfer in porous media; and frosting and fouling in heat exchangers. He is a member of the Saskatoon ASHRAE chapter.
Lianne Cockerton, P. Eng. and director of sustainable development with Martin Roy et Associés in Montreal is one of 24 inductees to the standing of ASHRAE Fellow. The special designation is awarded to members who have made significant contributions to improving the built environment and the HVAC and refrigeration fields through research, engineering design and consultation, industry publications and presentations and/or mentoring.
The New Western Memorial Regional Hospital in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, is among the nine winners of this year’s ASHRAE Technical Awards. The awards recognize the design teams behind projects that deliver superior energy efficiency and indoor air quality and demonstrate innovative systems design. The Corner Brook hospital was recognized in the category of new health care facilities, arising from the efforts of the designers, Kevin Sharples, Kurt Monteiro and Peter Kastelic. All three are P.Engs. with the consulting firm, Smith + Andersen.
Students from Simon Fraser University captured first place in the annual Setty Family Foundation Applied Engineering Challenge. In 2025, student teams were tasked with developing a carbon capture and utilization (CCU) module that could decarbonize HVAC and refrigeration systems and find practical uses for the captured carbon. The winning team of fourth-year students from Simon Fraser’s School of Sustainable Energy Engineering includes: Erin Flood, Michael La Grange, Jasleen Sandhu and Megan Zelasky.
